To participate, write (or paste) your game recap in an e-mail. Send it to bleedingbruinblue.recap@blogger.com or bleedingbruinblue+recap@gmail.com. (It's useful if you include your name at the top, mostly so we don't misspell it.) Your subject line will be your title. If you want to include pictures, links, video, etc., in your recap, you certainly can – either include it in your e-mail’s HTML coding or include a note at the top that says what should go where.

Once the posts come in, our editorial staff will take a look at them. Your submission, with your name attached, will be published in the order it was received. We'll do some basic editing of the articles, mostly for style, but please take a moment to look over it yourself before hitting “send.”

Your perspective on the game means, if not everything, most of everything. The winners and losers on the court are determined by the final score, but aside from the scoresheet and a few record books, the score really doesn't matter much. Tell us what you’ll remember about the game or what you learned from it – was it just the leading
scorers? The mathematical genius of points per possession? The best concession pretzel you've ever eaten? Or something else not listed here?

There’s a place for the sort of writer-detached game story you’ll find in the paper: the paper. But Bleeding Bruin Blue isn’t here to be detached — we’re here to document what happens specifically because we come from the Bethany community. Please don’t fall into the same boring clichés and catchphrases you can find in any column or sportscast. I’ve met a lot of you, and every one of us is more creative than that.

If you’re reading this site, it’s likely that you have some connection to one of the teams involved. That’s fine; that’s outstanding; like I said above, that’s what we want. But we’re not here for cheerleading. We don’t need to push agendas. Remember, over the course of the years, everyone — including both people we appreciate and despise — wins a few and everyone loses a few.

Some of you reading this have been members of the media; some of you may still be. But this project is not a shortcut to press row. If your endeavors in life involve something that gets you to the front row, that’s great. If you’re working the game, we’d love to hear your perspective, but don’t let us get in the way of your job. But we don't love being used as an excuse for a first-class seat. Simply put, you may not attempt to secure media credentials to represent Bleeding Bruin Blue.

I reiterate, you may not attempt to secure media credentials to represent Bleeding Bruin Blue.

Minimum game recap length: 100 words. I know it feels like a lot, but it’s doable. Single-spaced, 100 words will run about six lines down a sheet of paper. By all means, feel free to write more than 100; I’m doing that now. You might even be able to get away with 95, but many fewer words won’t work. If the story is less than 100 words, it’s usually something that a couple tweets could tell. (Sample recaps are posted below. Each is longer than 100 words.)

This site is here for all of us. But our words, the order they are used, and what they mean, belong to each of us. By submitting your recap, you agree to a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. That means that your work is yours: it cannot be reproduced commercially by anyone else (including us); passed off by someone else as their own work; or rearranged by someone else as a "new" piece. Anyone can reproduce the piece, so long as they attribute it to the original author.This protects you against the Internet: if you’ve ever seen an entire web page posted on Wikipedia, you know why this is important. You, however, can do anything you want with your piece: put it on your own blog, bind into a book and sell it, or translate it into foreign languages and enlighten the world.

If you want to do something else for this project — photography, regular columns, media guides, whatever — let's talk.

A few writing tips:

Tell us where the game happened. Put the city or town in a dateline at the top of your story.

Try putting your recap together before you write it. When you have a beginning, a middle, and an end, it’s much easier for things to fall into place rather than coming out as a jumbled mess of words.

Did I mention proofreading?
Learn a few basics of AP style – when to say ten or to say 10, whether to capitalize Coach (or coach) before a name, how to refer to the boys or the girls team. We won’t turn people down for not knowing this, but it’s a whole lot quicker to go through these stories (and thus get them posted) if you know what you’re doing.

Sample recaps are posted below — these, of course, are only examples, and you may use virtually any format that suits your style.

On a night when the only pre-existing certainty was the odor
emanating from the Lions Club’s annual baked bean dinner in the auxiliary gym,
Tech State created another in the match’s first points. After taking a 12-0
lead before surrendering the serve, the state’s top-ranked team was cruising to
an easy three-set win in the 47th County Classic championship.

But 24 points into the third set, play was stopped when the
second referee was overcome by a pungent odor. After the fire marshal declared
the gym unfit for play because of flammable gases, the match will be finished
tonight at University Gym.

Jane Doe bucked her previous serving woes, foal-ing the
Suburban serve-reception team into receiving errors on 15 of her 21 service
points. Rocky Bullwinkle, wearing goggles in her first game back after being
hit in the face with an errant soccer ball, used a 36-inch vertical to record
14 kills and seven blocks.

Plans are underway to separate the dinner from the
tournament next year.

Tennis

KINGSBURY, Ind. — Local 4, Central 1

“New balls, please.” In professional tennis, that cry is
heard after every ninth game. That luxury is unknown in high school, where
players regularly start finish a match with the same three balls.

Central’s Tim Timmson and Local’s Jimmy James longed for new
balls as Saturday morning’s match became an afternoon event and then an evening
affair. Meanwhile, the rest of Central’s team would have been pleased to see
their matches last long enough for the balls to show wear: they did not, as
Central picked up only ten games in the remaining four matches.

But it may have taken ten sets for Timmson or James to demonstrate
their superiority: not one break point, let alone a service break, was found in
the first five sets’ worth of games. Finally, deep into the third set, each player
found one; after nabbing a second, Timmson prevailed on his own serve to win 7-6(13),
6-7(17), 64-62. The match would have been the longest in IHSAA history had it
actually happened.

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, a yellow flag rose
into the stiff Thursday-afternoon breeze behind the Washington Elementary building.
In cross-country lore yellow signals a right turn, just as red signals a left
turn and blue signals no turn, but on this day the yellow marker was merely an
indicator of buried utility lines.

But this fact eluded your humble reporter, who dutifully
followed the response to the construction manager that called before he dug.
Presumably, the racers did not — I turned to the right, waited for some time, and
saw no runners until they were passing the three-mile point to enter the final
200 yards behind me. Astonishingly, there was virtually no separation between the
schools’ top runners! The top four women, two apiece per side, crossed nearly
simultaneously, a pattern that was repeated by the next four and then the remaining
six. In fact, it was not until aerial images could be obtained from a passing
blimp, nearly two hours later, that Northeastern’s Anita Banana was declared
the winner in 19:21.